The Pull Of Pack
by Anime Girl23
Summary: None of them were ever the same after the hyena possession. Xander tried not to think about it, he did, but he heard it sometimes. The mental call of his pack, hurting and scared. The others could handle things fine on their own, but Puck… He was alone. Xander/Puck slash


Look! I'm not dead! I meant to post this months ago. It's been sitting on my laptop since January, but well... I fail at life apparently.

As always, reviews are love. Even if it's something short. They act as inspiration.

**Warnings:** Mention of three minor character deaths.

Disclaimer: Neither Glee nor BTVS belong to me.

The Pull Of Pack  
One-shot

Nothing was ever the same after the hyena possession.

None of them were ever the same.

In the direct aftermath, Xander really had believed it was gone. He'd felt fine. He'd felt in control of himself, but as time wore on, he knew that he was losing it. He could feel it, some part of the hyena still left inside him, warring against him and against the soldier still in his head. She wanted control. She wanted her pack.

He did everything he could to ignore it, to push it back.

He meditated in an effort to find a balance.

He trained in the basement of his house while his parents lay upstairs, drunk and unconscious.

He patrolled the areas Buffy didn't.

There were times he thought about telling his friends, of asking for help. He could have talked to Giles. The G-Man knew that he still had the memories from the possession and he had enough books that he probably could have found some kind of solution.

But… The hyena had become a part of him, as much as the soldier had. The more he trained, the more she settled in his head, content to co-exist. By senior year, the only times she gave him problems was during her mating periods.

Those days, he just tried to avoid the other members of his old pack and the way their eyes would flash green.

Tried to ignore the want.

Every so often, he'd allow himself a few minutes to wonder about Puck and how he was faring on his own. Tor's cousin had only been around for a semester before he moved back to Ohio to complete his freshman year. He would be a junior now, Xander thought. The youngest of them all to be possessed and he'd still managed to take in the beta spirit.

Xander worried sometimes if the higher ranking meant a stronger spirit fighting inside of someone that was not only younger, but also on their own. He knew Tor, Rhonda, and Heidi kept close these days. Watched as Kyle got pushed aside, because missing that field trip had saved and ruined him at the same time. He would never understand what was inside his friends now.

It was only natural that they left him behind.

He tried not to think about it, he did, but he heard it sometimes. The mental call of his pack, hurting and scared. The others could handle things fine on their own, but Puck… He was alone.

He was the one Xander heard most, tiny whimpers that echoed in his head and that only sounded half-human. Hopeless howls that kept him up at night, crying and grieving the loss of someone that should have been there.

He picked up his phone once when the call got too bad. Found the number he never deleted off his cell and let it ring until Puck picked up.

_"Alpha…"_

He hung up before Puck could say anything else. Put his fist through a wall because he couldn't handle it. He couldn't be an alpha. He didn't _want_ to be an alpha. He was supposed to be the normal Scooby, not the one with a spirit inside him, fighting to get to her hurting beta.

Puck is pack, her voice had shouted in his head. He's ours.

Not ours, Xander had argued back. We're not pack. Not anymore.

He tried to convince himself of that even when he found himself with the other three, calming them whenever their hyenas started to take control.

Then graduation came and they died.

Tor was drained by a vamp.

Heidi got knocked down the stairs and her neck snapped.

Rhonda was killed by another student's cross-bow, a victim of nothing more than bad aim.

He couldn't…

He just couldn't do it.

Angel left and so did Xander. He wrote his friends a letter, apologizing for leaving and coming clean about his lie during the Acathla insanity, got in his car and drove. He doubted they'd follow after him now that they knew the truth.

He didn't sleep and only stopped long enough to fill up his gas tank as he followed the grieving howls leading him towards Ohio.

* * *

Puck had felt it. The second his cousin and his two friends died, he knew. He'd felt the snap inside of him, faster and harsher than it had been when he lost Beth. With her, he knew she was still alive but that she wasn't his anymore. Now… Now, all Puck could feel was the emptiness in his head. Where he used to hear the bickering of Tor, Rhonda, and Heidi, now, it was nothing but silence.

He'd been home alone when it happened. Felt the break as each one of them died and…

He rushed out of his house so fast that he was sure he broke the door and ran for the woods in the park. The area the kids weren't allowed to play in, because the trees just got too dense.

He killed a rabbit without thinking about it and then cried harder for another unnecessary death.

Cried for his cousin.

Cried for the girls.

Cried for the alpha that didn't want him.

He slept in the woods that night, feet bare because he'd never even paused to get his shoes when he ran from his house. No jacket. He shivered against the cool spring night and tried to figure out why he was the one left alone.

"Puck…"

He jumped when he heard his alpha's voice behind him, eyes still watery as he stared up at the teen he hadn't seen since his mom had gotten sober and he and Sarah were sent back to Lima.

He watched Xander, body shaking as he rose to his feet. His foot slipped in a puddle of blood the rabbit had left behind, but he didn't pay it any attention as he dove forward and fell into the taller teen's arms.

Xander's arms wrapped around him, tight and desperate, and they fucked on the dirty ground while Xander's teeth sank into the skin on his neck. They fucked like they didn't feel mostly-dead.

They were all the other had left now. All that was left of their pack.

They lay on the ground afterward, Xander's thin jacket pulled over them both, but it brought no warmth. It was too small and they were just too numb.

"I'm sorry," Xander whispered as Puck buried his face in his alpha's neck.

"How?"

He cried when Xander told him how they'd died. Wished he'd been there and wasn't sure if he just wanted to die too or if he thought he actually could have made a difference.

"Can you control it?" Xander asked him after they'd returned to his still-empty house. Puck curled against his chest, grateful that his mom was at work and that Sarah was with a friend so that no one could question the whimpers that sounded more animal than human.

"Barely."

The hyena in him fought. Screamed during heat. Took so much control of him in the early days that he'd slept with Quinn. Had a child that was never really his even though she still felt like pack.

He kept it at bay as much as he could. Fight club worked only so much, though, before his style got too animalistic and people refused to fight him. These days, he trained in the same woods he'd run to, hitting and kicking trees in a bastardized kind of martial art that was really no more than him blowing off steam to settle the spirit.

The hyena still cried, though. For its pack. For a mate. It wanted to belong just as much as he did.

Kindred spirits, Puck thought sometimes. Alone and unwanted.

"Don't leave," he whispered before he could stop himself.

"I'm not going anywhere."

Puck wanted to ask if his alpha was staying for him or if he was simply staying because there was no one else, but he never got a chance. Xander's teeth latched onto his neck again and he groaned. Let himself get fucked into the crappy couch and wondered if this was what it was like to be wanted.

* * *

Xander never left Lima. He got an apartment and found a job. Carpentry let him use his hands. He whittled stakes with the spare wood and taught Puck how to fight. Took him to Cleveland and let his beta play on the less active Hellmouth.

They made a good team.

He wondered sometimes how his girls were. They never tried to contact him after he left and he didn't either. He kept an eye on the news and the obituaries just to be safe. E-mailed Giles once to say that he was okay, but nothing more than that.

The longer he was in Lima, the more he felt like Sunnydale was a part of his past. Which, if he thought about it, was weird since he was in Lima _because_ of something that happened in Sunnydale.

Whatever. His life was confusing. That was nothing new.

He remained close to Puck as the younger teen began his senior year. Sat with him and celebrated when Beth came back. Sat with him and grieved when she left again.

The hyena in him had pushed against his control, screaming for the blood of the woman that hurt what was his. There were times when he'd see Puck's crushed and half-dead look, when he'd hear the teen's whimpers, that he almost let her loose.

Part of Puck disappeared after Shelby took Beth away again. Xander knew he was spending less nights in his own bed and more on the forest floor. Knew Puck was giving into more of his instincts whenever he'd show up on Xander's doorstep with clothes splattered with the blood of what he promised was animal.

"I'm losing control," he whispered two months after Shelby left as he stood in Xander's living room, barefoot and shivering.

"I know," Xander whispered back as he pulled Puck against his chest. Closed his eyes and wished he'd been able to do more for his beta. "No more, Puck."

"Alpha…"

"_No_. No more," he said as his grip on Puck tightened. "You hunt, you hunt with me. You hurt, you come here."

Puck nodded and let his head tilt to the side, bearing his neck. Submission. His sign to Xander that he understood and accepted the orders. Xander almost snorted as he gave Puck's skin a hard bite that made the smaller teen shudder.

It felt unbelievable to think about where he was now. His pack, the one he hadn't even wanted, dead, save for one. Living so at peace with the hyena that he didn't think twice when he'd do something not quite human. In love with his beta, a teen that was probably as damaged as Xander himself was.

They were kissing as they fell onto the bed, hips grinding together as shirts were ripped off and jeans fell away. Puck's skin was still cold as Xander ran his hands over the body beneath him. Gave the skin on Puck's hip a nip and a lick as his fingers drifted further south.

"Please… Alpha…"

He stretched him carefully but quickly before he pushed inside, lips locked onto Puck's as they swallowed the other's groan. Fucked him hard as Puck's short nails dug into his back and his own fingers left bruises on tanned skin.

"Alpha," Puck moaned. "Xander…"

He bore his neck again as Xander dropped his head and licked the skin.

"Mate," he grunted as he let his teeth pierce the skin at the juncture of Puck's neck and shoulder.

Puck cried out, arching up against him as he came, body shaking and hands grabbing. Fell back against the blankets as Xander licked away the blood and fucked him to completion.

Xander dropped beside his beta (his _mate_), still kissing the mark as Puck practically purred. "Mate," he murmured again.

"Mate."

The End

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